It's a sadly familiar tale - but that shouldn't make it any less disturbing.
Merseyside today finds itself once again reeling from funding decisions made by a Conservative government. No, it wasn't all bad news for the region from the latest round of Levelling Up cash awards, but it was mainly bad news - as it has been for the past 12 years.
While last night's announcement of so-called 'Levelling Up' awards contained money to regenerate Earlestown's historic market square and for transport and leisure facilities in Halewood, the majority of bids from across the region were knocked back.
READ MORE: Most Merseyside areas miss out on millions from government
Many of these plans would have done great things for some of the most deprived communities in the country. Proposals for vital regeneration in West Everton, Bootle, Huyton and Liscard in Wirral were all rejected. Meanwhile Rishi Sunak's wealthy rural constituency of Richmond received £19m of funding. Go figure.
Not only is this deeply disappointing for these forgotten areas and the people behind those lengthy and costly bids, but it speaks to a much wider problem and a final realisation that Levelling Up was always and will always be a sham.
Some have called the awarding of cash in this way a beauty pageant, others have opted for the more visceral Hunger Games depiction. Whatever you want to call it, this is an absurd and humiliating process that forces cash-strapped councils to dedicate precious resources into bidding for specific pots of government money that for some, were unlikely to ever be successful.
Whether these bids had been successful or not, they should never be seen as a replenishment of the financial chasm created in local government funding since the coalition government rode into battle on a horse called austerity in 2010.
Since that point, councils across Merseyside have each lost hundreds of millions of pounds, thousands of staff and countless vital services relied upon by deprived communities. If you want optics, news of Liverpool's two rejected Levelling Up bids came as the city council prepares to cut another £73m from its budget and reluctantly considers removing lifeline benefits support schemes.
Over in Wirral, as the teetering local authority's bid to regenerate the struggling Liscard town centre was rejected, weary officers and politicians will have returned their attention to how to tackle a yawning £30m deficit. Current grim proposals include the closure of 10 libraries and a leisure centre.
But do not fear! We hear the government say as they kindly inform councils that they can make up for the growing black hole in their ability to fund basic services with another rise in Council Tax, as they have routinely done throughout the merciless years of cuts.
There is a pretty big problem with that though - it is grossly unfair. Take a city like Liverpool, which has some of the most deprived areas of the entire country. The city has greater needs than many other areas, more people struggling and needing help, worse health outcomes and a more severe social care crisis. One might think that an area with such desperate and growing needs should have more cash funnelled in - not less. Anyone meandering under such a misaprehension should be directed to Mr Sunak's summer boasts about actively diverting cash from deprived areas to ones more likely to vote Conservative.
Not only has Liverpool suffered more in cuts to government funding than most other areas, the Council Tax it can raise is far lower than more affluent areas. This is because it has a higher level of lower value properties that are charged less in tax. So a borough like Westminster can raise lots more money through Council Tax despite having much lower pressures than a city like Liverpool. Make that make sense.
All this goes to show that whatever the decisions of the latest round of funding awards, Levelling Up was always a myth, a sham, a lie. As the Mayor of Liverpool Joanne Anderson said today after news of the city's two rejected funding bids: "If this government is serious about tackling regional inequality, they need to provide local authorities with the resources that empower us to deliver improvements. Otherwise Levelling Up is just an empty, rhetorical slogan."
Many of us always thought that last part would turn out to be true. Today we know definitively that it is.
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